In just two weeks the season will commence, and a long 162-game marathon will be here whether any of us are ready for it or not. With a little bit of time before Opening Day, I thought I would break down the Pirates schedule and get into some trends, numbers and oddities that come with MLB scheduling.
From South Beach to the Big Apple
The Pirates will open the 2026 season in New York to face the Metropolitans in what will be just the third time since 1990 that the Pirates have opened the season in New York. A long way away from Miami where the Pirates have started the last two seasons from. The Bucs last opened in New York in 2002 in a 6-2 loss where Mets starter Al Leiter defeated Ron Villone, and then in 1990 when they had a much better debut defeating the Mets 12-3 as Doug Drabek outdueled Mets young phenom Dwight Gooden.
Starting the season on the road has become a bit of a trend for the Pirates. This will mark the 10th consecutive season where the Pirates began the season on the road. Is there something always wrong with PNC Park in late March that I’m not aware of or what? The Pirates are 4-5 in those past nine road Opening Days. The last time the team started the campaign at home was in 2016 versus the Cardinals when the Bucs were riding high off their NL Wildcard game win and playoff appearance the year prior.
Welcome, AL
The Pirates then go to Cincinnati for a three-game series before heading home for the home opener on Friday, April 3 against the Orioles. This will be the second time in the past three years that the Orioles will open PNC Park with the Pirates and the sixth time an American League team will be at PNC Park for the home opener. That includes the last four seasons after playing the Yankees in ’25, Orioles in ’24 and White Sox in ’23. The Pirates are 1-2 in the past three home openers against the AL.
Go West, Young Man
The Pirates will embark on three West Coast trips in 2026. The first one comes early from May 5-10 when they’ll travel to Arizona and San Francisco for two three-game series. The next trip out west comes in June when they’ll make their first trip ever to Sacramento in the middle of the month to face the A’s at a minor league park and then continue onto Colorado before returning home.
The team’s longest road trip of the season is their final trip out west in late August. The Bucs travel to Los Angeles to face the Dodgers on August 21 then head south to San Diego for three games and make a layover in St. Louis for three games against the Cardinals to complete the month of August. That’s a nine-game, three-city road trip and by far the longest of the season.
All-Star Break
MLB’s Midsummer Classic this season is set for Tuesday, July 14 across the Keystone state in Philadelphia and teams will take a break from July 13-16. The Pirates time off will be sandwiched in the middle of a brutal stretch as they’ll face four straight 2025 playoff teams. The Pirates will close out the first half at home against the Brewers and then coming out of the break, they’ll travel to Cleveland, New York to face the Yankees and then come back to Pittsburgh to play the Cubs.
Numbers Breakdown
The MLB schedule these days is about as balanced as it gets. It’s designed that way obviously. The days of playing your divisional opponents 19 times are gone. Every team plays every other team including everyone in interleague play. Here’s how the numbers shake out with how many games against each opponent:
NL Central: The Pirates will play everyone in the NL Central 13 times each that includes four series (three, three-game series and one four-game series). That’s 52 games against your division.
American League: We’ll see the Pirates face every team in the AL for three games and then they get a home and home with the Tigers as their designated rival series for a total of six games with three games in Pittsburgh and three in Detroit. That’s 48 games against the AL in interleague play.
NL East and NL West: The Pirates will play every non-divisional NL team six times but see the Nationals and Phillies for an extra game so a total of seven against those two teams. That’s 62 games against everyone else in the NL.
Who’s keeping a running tally? 52 + 48 + 62 and you have 162 games, 81 at home and 81 on the road.
Homebody
Fans will have to wait a long time to see the Bucs longest homestand of the season as it’s the final homestand of 2026. The Pirates will be in Pittsburgh from September 15-24 to face the Brewers, Royals and Cardinals in a nine-game homestand before finishing the season with three games in Detroit.
No Cutch in Pittsburgh
If Andrew McCutchen makes the Rangers, we won’t have to wait long to see him on our TVs as the Pirates travel to Texas on April 21 for a three-game series. Unfortunately, that’s all we would see of Cutch as the Rangers do not make a trip to Pittsburgh this season which could have been an intriguing return for Cutch again in yet another different uniform.
Tough Stretch
I went through each month’s collection of games and using FanGraphs projected standings, I found the average projected wins of each month’s opponents and coming in as the toughest month is August. In August, the Pirates opponents have a projected average of 82.4 wins or a .506 winning percentage. They also play six playoff teams from last season in that month plus the Mets who didn’t make the playoffs but are projected for 88 wins this season. The Bucs will also be on the road for 18-out-of-27 games this month. An especially brutal stretch comes in mid-August when they face the Red Sox, Tigers, Dodgers and Padres in a row.
The good news is the easiest month should come directly after August. In September, the Pirates face just three playoff teams from last season and all the opponents that month project for just a .487 winning percentage. Here’s the opponents’ winning percentage by month:
April .488
May .487
June .500
July .500
August .506
September .487
Coming Soon to PNC
This season there will be no Yankee takeover at PNC Park, no Guardians from Cleveland coming down the turnpike, but the AL teams that will be making a trip to Pittsburgh this year are the Royals, Orioles, Rays, Mariners, Angels, Twins, Tigers and Red Sox. There’s plenty of stars coming in with those teams…think Cal Raleigh, Bobby Witt Jr, the Red Sox litany of young stars and with the Angels coming to town in early September there’s always a chance you can see Mike Trout, health permitting as he will be 35 years old by that point.
Off Days
The Pirates have 21 scheduled off days in the 2026 season. Add that in with 162 games plus the 3-day All-Star break and the full season stretches a total of 186 days for six months from March 26 to September 27. The bulk of those off days come on Monday with 13 scheduled off days (not including ASB) happening at the beginning of the work week. Seven off days will come on Thursday and one off day is scheduled for Friday, which is the weather makeup day immediately following Opening Day in case it’s a wash out. No scheduled off days take place on Tuesday, Wednesday or the weekend.
Road trips!
When the schedule comes out every offseason, one of the first things I do is see who the Pirates play on the road that wouldn’t be a far trip from Western PA. There’s just something about hoping in the car to follow your team on the road and see a different ballpark and everything it has to offer. Some of the quick trips you could make this year are:
Cleveland—July 17-19. The mistake by the lake is just a couple hour drive from Pittsburgh and the Bucs open the second half with the Guardians this season. And it’s the only time these two close rivals will meet up. Tyler, you going?
New York—March 26-29 & July 20-22. The Pirates actually make two trips to the big apple this season as they open the season with the Mets that was previously mentioned, but they return in mid-July for a trip to Yankee Stadium to see Aaron Judge and our ol’ pal Gerrit Cole. Cody, you going?
Toronto—May 22-24. Let me be real…I’m a sucker for everything Toronto. I love the city, I love the ridiculous huge SkyDome (don’t @ me), I love those all blue throwback jerseys and I root for the Blue Jays as my AL team. I watched Hall of Famer Roy Halladay pitch there back in the day, and I was at a Blue Jays/Pirates game in Toronto in 2017 days after my wife and I found out we were expecting our first child. This is always a trip I’m looking to make. We will see if I will be there this May.
Cincinnati—March 30-April 1 & July 30-August 2. This is one trip I have yet to make believe it or not. I would love to see that launching pad Great American Ballpark one of these years and we have two shots at it again this season.
All Chicago trip—September 8-13. If you’re a Pirates fan and always wanted to check out Chicago, this September would be a great time to do so. The Pirates will spend a week in the Windy City, first playing the White Sox on the southside from September 8-10 and then moving north of downtown to Wrigley Field to play three against the Cubs. A cool, scheduling feature this season.
Detroit—September 25-27. Detroit gets a bad rap generally, but I’ve made this trip a bunch of times after living in Michigan years ago. It’s a nice ballpark and folks are always surprised to hear that Detroit is only about a four-hour drive away. It’s a doable trip, but picture this: The Pirates defeat the Cardinals on getaway day behind home runs from Konnor Griffin and Bryan Reynolds to improve to 87-72 and move one game behind the Cubs for the NL Central crown and now head to Detroit for the final three games of the season. Paul Skenes is set to pitch game one with Jared Jones slated for game two and Bubba Chandler the season finale…who’s making the drive for that kind of series? I’m jacked just thinking about it now.
The 2026 season begins in New York and ends in Detroit and in between there, there’s a lot of baseball to be played—home runs, strikeouts, run downs, wins and losses. There will be ups and downs, peaks and valleys…you just have to try and avoid the Grand Canyon of those valleys. Let’s hope it’ll be a very fun season in the Burgh.
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